Room Cooling Suggestions

So what would be the optimal fan setup then (prior to cutting holes)? The room is at the end of a west facing hall (sun directly at it in the afternoon) Where you walk into the door, and as you walk straight in, there is a large window opposite the door (the one that gets the sun) and then a smaller window on the left hand side, chest high. The air vent is right next to the door. Kinnda hard to explain, but what are some tips on setting up fans for optimal air flow? Cause even with the computers off all night, the room is still 82F by mid-afternoon today, and that just doens't seem right. That air must just be trapped in there.
 
in that case u should get a good portable or window a/c unit. Since u r in the sun, that helps a lot more.
 
Something else you could consider is having the windows tinted. All the places around here that tint car windows, also do residential jobs. They have a lot of different types of tint or "film" that they use. Different types that reflect, block, etc..
 
Sucka said:
I wasn't sure if this would be related to cooling or not, but for lack of a better section i'll post here.

I have 4 computers running in my office (1 24/7, the others while i'm in here) and the office faces the sun in the afternoon. It gets about 82-88F here by mid-afternoon and is almost unbarable. I have central air for the house, and keep it at 76F throughout the day, but even closing ALL the vents doesn't help keep this room cool. I really can't put an a/c unit into the wall/window b/c i don't know how, and don't want to pay someone a lot of money to put a hole in my wall. I live in San Diego, so as you can imagine it stays pretty warm year round so a perminant thing would work. What suggestions do you have for cooling a room down besides just a lot of fans? The 2 fans i've got in here are rather worthless atm. Having one blowing directly in my face is about the only way i can keep somewhat cool. Are there any good (meaning cheap) a/c units that do not need mounting? And fans that are better than others? Just looking for a way to bring temps down a bit mainly for comfort, not to mention my CPU temps are significantly higher as well...Thanks.
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Try some peel'n'stick window film...pretty much the same thing as the car window tinting but it can be put up and taken down over and over...

Also any chance you could put a ceiling fan in the room? move the air around a bit in there..they aren't too expensive..

Maybe even vent the ceiling of that room into the return for the AC, that would take a bit of work but it would draw the warm air out of the room and the cool air in.

MD
 
sandman78 said:
I have a HUGE central air conditioning system, but my office upstairs was always pushing 80F. Needless to say, I HAD to do something. So I bought a 12,000BTU portable (remote controlled :D) Air conditioner. The room stays at a constant 69F, and I can go much lower. My friends think I secretly have pet penguins that I'm trying to keep happy :D Below are links to the website that I ordered my unit from. After talking to a couple of places, I learned that Sunpentown was one of the best brands. Every retailer I talked to told me to go with them. I had not ever heard of them, but I DID go with one of their units. I have to say that the unit is pretty sweet. What made my install even more difficult was the fact that I have windows that "crank" OUT. So what I did was I took one of my screens to a local shop and had a piece of plexiglass cut the exact same size. They also cut a circle in the plexiglass for the fitting that the exhaust hose connects to. Everything works great, and I cannot imagine being without it. If you want to solve your heat problem, go with one of the Sunpentown units.

Here is the unit I went with---> http://www.factorydirect2you.com/suaircowa.html
Air Conditioner Section @ Factorydirect2you.com
http://www.factorydirect2you.com/airconditioner.html
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I have side opening windows in my room, they crank open so I can't actually use that insert for the exhaust. Is there a way to run that portable without exhausting anything outside the house?
 
Chrisman5000 said:
I have side opening windows in my room, they crank open so I can't actually use that insert for the exhaust. Is there a way to run that portable without exhausting anything outside the house?
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When you say "side opening", "they crank", it sounds exactly like my windows. Mine crank open also. I never thought my side cranking windows would work either, but the plexiglass idea worked.

Is your window anything like this?
casemaster.jpg


If so, that's what my window is like(except mine's a little bit smaller).

And any air conditioner will need some way to vent hot air outside. At least every one I've ever seen does.
 
Nazo said:
How did you power your fan? Does it just run off of batteries or something? It would be a huge pain to run the electricity to there through the wall, but an extention cord stretching up there would look even more silly. ^_^
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yeah the power cord is the only thing that does not look so great. but i worked it to go along side (about an inch away) from all of the networking cables i have running along the top of the wall and down to the switch.


wilson502 said:
tynin it would of been easier to put a normal fan outside ur room with the door open so it brings in that 70F air instead of cutting holes in walls.
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hehehe actually i decided to put the door up in the first place because even my wife wanted more privacy while looking at porn, lol. we had room-mates at the time, and well, keeping somethings behind closed doors is 'handy' lol. now days i dont have room-mates, but keeping the door closed is nice for keeping it dark while playing doom3 and morrowind and such. also helps keep the living room more quite. (plus i did not mind knocking the hole out since it isn't very hard to patch holes in drywall once i want to sell my house)

yeah i just remembered that I did tint my windows too. you can get some do it yerself window tints from home depot and it is quite simple to just do it yourself if you are just doing a window or 2.
 
Chrisman5000 said:
I have side opening windows in my room, they crank open so I can't actually use that insert for the exhaust. Is there a way to run that portable without exhausting anything outside the house?
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:p dont we all wish right? cooling the room but not exhausting heat, heh? maybe if u find a way to beat around the second law of thermodynamics you could. really though, your AC is no more than a heat pump that transfers heat from one area (your house) to another (outside), while adding some generated heat of its own to it as well. the window units typically use radiators to exhaust heat, while the smaller portables heat air and pump it through the hose to do the same. just a tiny bit of thermodynamics for ya all.
 
oh BTW Sucka all u really need to do solve your problems is to take a trip to your local store like sears or target and get yourself a window mounted AC for 150-200 bucks. Back at my parents house I used to run a 3 computer setup in a second floor room, also facing the sun in mid-summer (read 90-95F outside plus direct sunlight) and a cheap 6000BTU unit easily held the room at comfortable 70F. just get something like this
http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/prod...vertical=APPL&pid=04274082000&tab=des#tablink
and install it by yourself, its really easy to do and only takes like 10 minutes with a drill and a few screws. and once it gets cold out it takes only a few minutes to take it back down (i never bothered to :))
 
realrussian said:
:p dont we all wish right? cooling the room but not exhausting heat, heh? maybe if u find a way to beat around the second law of thermodynamics you could.
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Here is one way to not break the law, but let it put the heat elsewhere:

I have found that using a large block of ice and having a fan blow across it can create some lower temps. Just make sure the pan you place the ice in is large enough to catch all the water that melts. Just freeze you a new block every evening in the refer and you are good to go. :) No heat to vent out of the room, just nice, humid and cool air.
 
Disarray said:
Here is one way to not break the law, but let it put the heat elsewhere:

I have found that using a large block of ice and having a fan blow across it can create some lower temps. Just make sure the pan you place the ice in is large enough to catch all the water that melts. Just freeze you a new block every evening in the refer and you are good to go. :) No heat to vent out of the room, just nice, humid and cool air.
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thats true, in this case you will be draining the heat out of the atmosphere and putting it into ice (rather than the air outside) then hauling large ice blocks into the room and buckets of meltwater out, till yout trip and spill it all over the floor, or (god forbid) the towers :p . In this case your still moving heat out of the room, except you do it with your own two hands when yout take out that warm melt water. Alternatively one could also drain heat out of a room using other inconveniet or impractical ways, such as liquid nitrogen, or even piezoelectrics (peltiers). Or you could just spend 150 bucks on a cheap window unit taht will keep the room decently cool.
 
Does anyone have any experience "converting" a window mount ac unit into a unit that can sit in a room? I was thinking of trying this out.

All i would have to do would be to somehow vent the unit outside right? I was thinking some ducting, duct tape, and some heavy duty trashbags... Any thoughts?
 
somehow i doubt this would be very effective. when the unit is in the window, the outside grill with the radiator is exposed to the ambient atmosphere, as well as the intake duct. the air sucked in from the intake duct is then divided and some of it is pumped into the room over the cold evaporator coils while the rest is pumped through the radiator facing the outside to dissipate heat. if you were to duct it you would need an intake duct going to the side (or the top) of the unit to suck the air from the outside, as well as an exhaust duct with decent airflow and most important very good insulation, otherwise lots and lots of heat will be dissipated back into the room through the exhaust duct walls and make it very pricy/ineffective. not to even mention that it looks very ugly. why not just put it in a window?
 
Cause I can't :D

I understand that I would need to duct it out, but why do i have to duct air in?

It can just use the air in the room for that right?
 
By the way, my portable air-conditioner collects water and I have to drain it about every 2 weeks. But it isn't like the older ones where it could possibly over flow out into the floor. If something happened and I forgot to drain the water, etc.. and it is full, the unit will automically shut off and the air conditioner will not work until the water is drained.
 
Depends on the ac setup. Some ac have two separate intakes in isolated circuits, one for the outside air and one for the inside. You could conceivably use inside air to vent the cooling fins, but it would be inefficient. I agree with russian. If using a duct, it would have to be insulated for the entire length inside. Keep in mind also that most window ac radiator fans do not function well with high exhaust pressure. Too long a duct and you lose cooling efficiency.
 
can you duct a window air conditionning unit directly into your PC CASE?
I was thinking about doing that. any Pros/Con?
 
umm. ur Case would get REALLY HOT!, thus throwing the heat right back into ur room. Use ur head! NM, i thought u were talkin bout takin the exhaust hose and sticking into the computer lol. Ive seen someone take a hose from a window a/c and duct it into a computer, requires cutting holes, but ive seen it done. It would keep ur case cool.
 
Medstu said:
Depends on the ac setup. Some ac have two separate intakes in isolated circuits, one for the outside air and one for the inside. You could conceivably use inside air to vent the cooling fins, but it would be inefficient. I agree with russian. If using a duct, it would have to be insulated for the entire length inside. Keep in mind also that most window ac radiator fans do not function well with high exhaust pressure. Too long a duct and you lose cooling efficiency.
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That is true, pretty much all ACs have ability to use inside air as well as outside for intake, I just thought that you do want some air from the outside for ventialtion sake. Also you cannot use room air to vent the cooling fins (I assume you mean the hot radiator exhaust part, not the cold evaporator coils that cool the air pumped inside) since ultimately the AC heats more than it cools, and in normal operation you are heating the outside more than you are cooling the inside (moves heat from one side to other, plus adds some due to its own operation). Pumping heat across the room would be detrimental rather than inefficient and your room will get only hotter. Cant beat around the second law ;)

And yes the ducting has to be as short as possible and VERY well insulated to minimize efficiency losses
 
About 10 pounds of Ice Cubes placed directly on top or your head should do the trick!
 
I have 4 computers in our computer room. Central air alone does not do the job because the thermostat is located in a different part of the house and this room generates more heat than any other room. My solution was a window A/C unit which now pulls double duty:

DSC00141.JPG
 
Well guys, i bought the 1210-M unit, same as urs sandman, but doesnt heat or have a remote control. My room is only like 170 sq. ft. Sandman, do u keep ur room closed off, or do u keep ur door open. I obught it for 439 shipped. I hope this is worth it. Also, i plan on buying some insulation for the hose. Besides this uses the same amount of energy as the 9000 unit.
 
Even tho I answered this thru PM, I will go ahead and post it also.(in case someone else wants to know). I keep my door shut. Sometimes I will open the door for short lengths of time, just to let a little "humidity" back in the room. With that AC in a small room, there is like ZERO humidity. Which is ok to a point, except my sinus's start to "dry out".

Also, I don't have my hose insulated, because it's only about a 3 ft. run. The hose that comes with the unit is that "accordian" (spelling?) like material, so on a short run like mine, it is all pushed together. I have no problem with heat coming from it. However, I can easily see how a longer run would need the insulation.

BTW, my unit pulls it's air from the inside. It only uses the hose to send the hot air out.

cgrant26 said:
I have 4 computers in our computer room. Central air alone does not do the job because the thermostat is located in a different part of the house and this room generates more heat than any other room. My solution was a window A/C unit which now pulls double duty:
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Sweet Setup. Getting your moneys worth out of that AC aren't ya' :D. What kind of temps are you getting? The thermostat is basically the only reason 1 central air unit won't cool an upstairs floor. It's not that most unit's won't cool the "area", it's just that the thermostat kicks the thing off when it's still 77f upstairs.
 
77F is very comfortable at least IMO. Having my room at 79-80 makes a difference. So i prolly should keep my door shut, because the warm air from the rest of the house will sneak into my room.
 
At 1"x2"x9" the radiator is relatively small, (B&M stacked fin oil cooler) but it seems to do pretty well. I could probably drop 2 or 3 degrees with a larger rad.

Water temp: 18.3*C
CPU: 19*C idle / 25*C load
Board: 24-27*C (always warmer than CPU temp)

I also run a DD maze4 GPU block.

System specs:

NF7-S
Barton 2500+
512mb GEIL Ultra Platinum PC3500 CL2 (2-3-3-6)
Radeon 9800 Pro
LRWW CPU block
DD Maze4 GPU
Maxijet 1200 pump
 
Just thought I'd throw this in,

Since it Sun was mentioned, I presume that sunlight plays a part in heating the room. It might be a good idea to plant some trees and shrubs to diffuse and/or block light from hitting the outside walls and windows. In addition, and/or in the alternative, Awnings work wonders, mounted either over the windows or even an entire side wall.

A combination of all of the above would go a long way toward lowering your room/house temps, not to mention your electric bill and extending the life of your A/C system.

Luck!
 
problem my room faces the front of hte house, so an awning in the front of the house looks stupid. So does a window a/c, unless u live in a trailer park. Sorry a window a/c doesnt cut it in a upper middle class neighborhood. Portable a/c is the only way to go if ur room is in the front of the house.
 
Hmmm....Upper middle class...yet a custom a/c installation is too much money?

Well, here's the perfect Upper Middle Class solution, which is what I would have first suggested, but it seemed money was an issue:

Ductless Airconditioning

Also, since you don't want any "stupid" aesthetics, the most Upper Middle Class way to go would be to put your systems in an air conditioned closet or basement and network them to a workstation in your office?

This is what I plan to do, when I build my house in a couple of years.
 
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